Every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.
The other products featured on that page are also pretty hilarious.
Like this one. Though I admit in that case the funniest part is the name of the company.
"Oral thermometer my eye! Think warm thoughts boy cause this is mighty cold."
I'll admit that it took me a few seconds to figure out this line from the review of the wipe warmer: "we haven't had a brown wipe yet."
I guess their claim that this is "The only warmer that will not brown and dry out wipes" is true. Good job, Prince Lionheart.
I agree with most of the alarmists who are afraid that kids will be unsuited for the adult world when parents coddle them/shield them from risk/fight their battles too much. It seems like this is happening to more than half of the kids in America these days, whereas in the olden days it only happened to aristocrats.
I feel a strong aversion to the idea of negotiating a price on something (among other social interactions that involve mild interpersonal friction but no real animosity). I feel like I should have gotten accustomed to winning, losing, resentment, etc. in my life before this age, but it's just happening now.
Three co-workers at Weber Shandwick, the public relations firm where Ms. Varrelmann works, held a shower for her in the office, using the theme "Sweet and Sassy."
That's a theme? I challenge you to cite any all-female party that has ever been thrown for which you could not plausibly claim that this was the theme.
I had to wipe my ass through four feet of snow, uphill both ways.
The toddlers next door had a wipes warmer. Ours did not. They outnumber us, but we will crush them.
I love the third product picture on the Amazon page for the wipes warmer. What goldfish-memory dumbass has to keep the wipes next to a picture of the baby? I imagine them frequently forgetting the wipes' purpose until finally their partner slams the photo down next to the warmer as a quick, instructional reminder.
8: Um, how many all-female parties have you been to?
9: I've heard that snow is excellent ass-wiping material. I've never camped in the winter, though, so I don't have any personal experience in the matter.
14: It's cold. Both the snow on the ass and the everything else when you get out of the bag in the morning.
For some reason, all weekend I've been thinking about how many of my childhood games involved string, rocks, and tin cans. Cat's Cradle, Tin-Can-Telephone, Tin-Can stilts, Kick the Can, Duck on Rock... And that's before you introduce elastics!
In case it was obscure, 16 was meant as a generalised "get offa my lawn" directed at "those kids these days."
Can we stay on your lawn if we just play games involving string, rocks, and tin cans?
One of my beefs with "kids these day" is the damn video games and tv. Make those kids go outside.
While the baby shower loot diminishes with subsequent offspring, the arms race of preschool colleague birthday party presents more than compensates.
I generally bring a coloring book and a box of crayons for any b-day party for a schoolmate of the almost-3 year old and, depending on depth of the friendship established, encourage the 7YO to either take something of his own to give or at the very least put more thought than money into the gift we get.
But criminy, some parents drop cash. For example, a couple I hardly knew brought a $100+ laser-pointing-gun set to the elder's b-day last winter. Invitations just went to his whole class to avoid leaving kids out. Holy Moly. Not only were there awkward moments of relative value compare-and-contrast but how do you, 6 months later at the other kid's party, give a 3 dollar thing-a-ma-whatsit you picked up at the thrift store? It should all be toned-down a bit.
In all seriousness, Kick the Can might be my favorite game ever. Stealth! Recognition! Hiding in mosquito-infested waters! Arcane calls! Sudden! Bursts! Of! Action! And all you need is a variegated landscape, at least five people, and a can.
OT: Everyone's reading the Post series on Cheney, right? Even after all the other amazing stuff, it's amazing stuff.
Froz, my best birthday parties as kid involved a picnic in the great outdoors, and then a compass-based hunt for hidden treasure. The invitees got to keep the compass (which was a sad little thing, frankly) and the "treasure," the contents of which I don't even recall. I do remember minding the compass reading and counting out footsteps amidst the yellow grasses.
But criminy, some parents drop cash... It should all be toned-down a bit.
People get nuts with this stuff. Fuck that "invite the whole class to the party" noise. We do all parties at our local county rec center/gym. Great indoor swimming area with slide, water playground, etc. 80 bucks is a party for 10 kids or so with a couple of pizzas. The mess is not at our house, and plenty of lifeguards means we don't have to watch the little weasels that closely.
It's ass-wiping week here at Unfogged!
I'm sure you all know that joy is subjective: when my brother fucked with my blocks,
go on, foolishmortal, you'll feel so much better when you've told someone.
The real problem with things like wipe warmers is that they build expectations, and then when you don't have them, it's trouble. Same thing with carrying around endless baggies of snacks -- my kids know (well, they're past the endless nibbling stage. Knew.) that they could ask if I had any snacks with me, but the odds were somewhere between slim and none. And they never starved, and took it with reasonably good grace.
Self sufficiency is key -- you can start toughening up a baby surprisingly young.
Self sufficiency is key -- you can start toughening up a baby surprisingly young.
Yes, we need to be more spartan and shit.
It's like the wedding industrial complex, but more so, because if you don't have a big wedding, you're just a cheapskate whose napkins don't match the garter, but if you don't have a diaper warmer/co-sleep/watch baby Einstein your kid might lose 15 IQ points and end up in the ghetto, or worse, State U.
Actually, I had no idea something like baby-wipe warmers existed. It's like some end-of-the-Roman-empire thing.
It's like some end-of-the-Roman-empire thing.
There are a lot of things about which people are saying this lately...
33:
The number one thing to teach your kids is that life isn't fair. The next thing is to teach them that random bad things happen. Finally, teach your child that he, and he only, controls his happiness.
I do like the life lessons from the Three Stooges:
"In their unique way, the Stooges teach valuable life lessons that all men can identify with and can use to try to fashion their own lives. Some of these lessons include:
* Life can be painful (i.e. eye pokes, face slaps).
* Question authority (be it as a teacher, plumber, census taker, columnist; most any job can be pretty much made up as you go along).
* Despite your best efforts whatever you do may not be appreciated (ex: a pie in the face). "
(from Houston's Clear Thinkers)
re: 36
Yes, funnily enough. This would lead me to worry that it's maybe an end-of-the-Roman-empire situation.
Thank you Jesus, yet again, for making me gay.
As to making the kids go outside, I was sent outside all the time as a kid and spent a great deal of my childhood running around a few dozen acres of woods and was bored out of my skull with all of it by the time I was a "tween." If there had been other kids within a couple of miles it might have been more interesting. My dog was a loyal companion, yes, but not much of a conversationalist.
It never would have occurred to me to seek out a baby-wipe warmer. The things are already stored at room temperature.
No one tell my mother that these things exist.
Well, I spent most of my time outside too. But luckily didn't live in the middle of nowhere, so there were always loads of kids about for playing football or generally doing stuff.
Everyone was sent outside, pretty much all the time. That was the deal. You came inside when it was really really raining, or when you had to eat dinner, or if it was dark. Otherwise, outside.
re: 40
Yeah, it's tempting to do that whole 'inferring character traits from what people purchase' thing.
We were sent outside, too. We had a big flat backyard so ours was the place all the kids were running to, for games of run down, or run around, or tetherball, or tease one of the younger calasisters and get your ass kicked (always a popular option).
I refuse to believe that the neighborhood has been overcome with sexual predators and kidnappers in the past 20 years.
It should all be toned-down a bit.
We did the whole-class party, and we knew we didn't want a bunch of random shit from the whole class (even, maybe especially, $100 laser guns). My daughter agreed to ask for games for an orphanage in africa, which kept things reasonable.
I feel like charity birthdays have been catching on around here. We've been to a few. This year we did a smaller party, but my daughter still opted to have her friends bring frozen turkeys for the homeless shelter (her bday is right before thanksgiving).
And this is a girl whose ass was carefully wiped with warmed wipes.
This winter, I think becks should try getting up a few times a night and wiping her ass with a cold wet towl. See how she sleeps.
re: 43
I refuse to believe that the neighborhood has been overcome with sexual predators and kidnappers in the past 20 years.
I've read a bit recently about this. Mostly because I got into an argument with someone about it online and wanted to check.
Child kidnap/murder is pretty much static in the UK. Levels haven't increased in decades and the level is already near vanishingly low: in the region of 5 or 6 a year in a country with a population of 60 million. Per capita figures for the US are higher [just checked a couple of BBC articles] but not much.
Ttam, d'you think these things exist in Niatirb? I've certainly never seen baby-wipe warmers for sale here, but then again I probably don't shop in the right places.
"See how she sleeps."
Like a baby: waking up screaming every two hours. But this is different from warm-wipe babies precisely how?
re: 46
I've never seen them, but I googled, and there are definitely retailers in the UK selling them. No idea how much market penetration they have though.
Further to 48, I jsut msg'd a friend who has a nappy-wearing child. He had no idea such things existed either.
46. Never heard of them till five minutes ago and I'm not sure it isn't a pulling of the collective plonker yet. Certainly didn't have anything like that when we were losing our empire. Not bloody likely. It was, "Thank you, Dr Nyerere, and is there an outhouse we can use before we go?"
Somebody gave my ex and I a wipe warmer when Keegan was a baby, ten years ago. I can't say that he ever expressed any preference about wipe temperature. Haven't used one for either of the two young ones, though I guess it stands to reason that warm wipes would remove dried baby poo more easily than cold wipes.
That wipe warmer is pretty fancy, though. Ours was basically just a heating pad with velcro that wrapped around the box.
We just used the embers at the bottom of the communal cooking pit.
you can flog more or less anything to new parents, if it costs less than ten quid and it holds out some small possibility of stopping the thing crying. Given the amount and expense of the crap that you actually have to buy, a couple of overpriced gadgets seem like a bargain. I dare say that there's a market for a wipes chiller, to cool back down wipes that have been excessively warmed by the warmer.
Next step: hand-warmed artisanal baby wipes.
I do know they have organic baby wipes. And if you're really enterprising, you can make your own.
Our kids were born seventeen and fifteen years ago. We tried cloth diapers and a service, which had struggled along for years then right about when we were using it had an explosion of growth, people wanting natural and eco-friendly and all. Then it went out of business, probably growing pains but also a whole lot of customers realizing how messy, clumsy, inefficient and inconvenient it was, and reading about the same time that when all the gathering, laundering, delivery–trucking and whatnot were factored in, it didn't save many resources nor have much overall pollution impact.
Room temperature good enough here; aside from thoughtlessly storing them on the porch or something, why would they be any other temperature? I don't get it. I'd occasionally find a package that had dried out, and soaked it in warm water to recover it. If I'd gone on to immediately use it, I'd have approached the warm-wipes nirvana inadvertently. Sort of a pre–taste of a barber's hot towels, although applied to the wrong face.
I do know they have organic baby wipes. And if you're really enterprising, you can make your own.
My grandmother used to do that. She called it saving worn out shirts for rags.
You dolts, the wipe-warmer isn't about coddling the baby. It's not even for the baby; it's for the parents. When it's 3am and you wipe a cold damp cloth against your little one's ass, he's likely to cry. Or at least wake all the way up, and require a lot of work to get back down. A warmed-up wipe is much less disrupting, and you can wipe him off while he's still in a sleep-like trance and then get him back down much easier.
That said, we don't have one. But I know people who do, and I don't begrudge them for it.
It never would have occurred to me to seek out a baby-wipe warmer. The things are already stored at room temperature.
But they're damp!
Wipe warmers? I had no idea. And I have a three year old and a five week old in the house.
When it's 3am and you wipe a cold damp cloth against your little one's ass, he's likely to cry. Or at least wake all the way up, and require a lot of work to get back down.
This sounds like you're doing it wrong -- why are you changing the baby if they aren't awake already? The cycle I recall is cry, change, feed/cuddle, sleep.
aside from thoughtlessly storing them on the porch or something, why would they be any other temperature?
ahhh, and like Proust's madeleine, I am explaining O-level physics to the arts grads.
A wipe is by definition a wet piece of cloth/paper that has a large surface area compared to the mass of water within it. So from the moment you pick it up, water is evaporating. Evaporation is a cooling process - the molecules of water which evaporate are the higher-energy ones, so the average energy of the water molecules in the wipe is reduced by their departure as water vapour. So the temperature of the wipe is falling from the moment it is removed from the packet. Try this with a wet flannel - it can get really quite cold quite quickly. The wipe warmer warms up the wipes so that they are still warm by the time they reach the baby's arse. Note that as well, unless you keep your house at an even temperature of 37 degrees Celsius (oh all right then, 98 degrees Fahrenheit), "room temperature" is still going to be quite cold compared to the temperature of a baby's anus.
I bet there'd be a good market for madeleine warmers.
I once went out with a girl called Madeleine Warmers.
Anyway, D^2, aren't you meant to be 70s Dad? Who would surely not stand for any such nonsense, but instead apply the freezing wipe and retire for a crafty Long Life Lager?
But isn't the purpose of the wipes to be such that the liquid on them evaporates as it hits the baby's skin, leaving the baby drier and less prone to diaper rash?
59: I'm talking about actually making the pro-evaporation lemony liquid and the little box of disposable wipes.
64: You know, surprisingly, many of us liberal arts grads actually manage to understand basic evaporation. All we're disputing is the claim that absent a wiper warmer, frost forms both on your fingers and the ass of the baby. It's cooler, but not frozen.
63: he's waking, and he's hungry, but he's hardly awake. It's rather like the difference between waking up in the middle of the night in a drowsy state (even perhaps stumbling to the bathroom and back to bed), and having someone dump a bucket of ice water on you. There are different degrees of "awake."
Wait, so now they're marketing midnight ice baths for the young'uns?
Cala, I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. On several occassions, I've actually had the wipes freeze to my fingertips, and had run them under hot water in the bathroom to thaw.
It's one of those things you'll discover in college, Cala.
I thought I'd discover booze, not baby wipes.
64 overlooks the ever-significant enthalpy of evaporation; as liquid water transitions to a gaseous state, it pulls heat from its surroundings to overcome the energy barrier associated with phase changes. The cooling of a wet blanket isn't just because the warmest molecules are evaporating first, it's because the process of evaporation is actively cooling the thing.
That any babies survive their diaper years is nothing short of astounding!
When it's 3am and you wipe a cold damp cloth against your little one's ass, he's likely to cry.
There are more efficient solutions. Earplugs. Possibly duct tape.
Last time I did much regular nappy changing, it was cotton wool dipped in a little lukewarm water rather than wipes. But I don't remember the occasional wipe usage making a blind bit of difference to whether the baby cried more or not.
There are more efficient solutions. Earplugs. Possibly duct tape.
Funny you should mention that, because I actually tried wiping him with both of those and didn't get good results.
And unless your house is bloody freezing they really aren't *that* cold.
71: Well, I don't have the authority that comes with impregnating someone else, but I've changed enough diapers to be suspicious of claims that the wipes freeze. Thinking of other things that are tacky when frozen -- things kept in the freezer that develop frost. Maybe a glass full of ice water on a very frosty day. My old roommate used to keep baby wipes under the bathroom sink for cleaning purposes. Never got one to freeze.
Though, I haven't babysat regularly in about 5 years, so maybe they've changed the formula to be extra-frosty.
69: Huh. If you say so, I guess every baby's different. The amount of trauma involved in a cold-wipe change versus a warm-wipe change didn't seem to affect my kids through a subsequent feeding, although admittedly they never got a warm-wipe change.
I thought I'd discover booze, not baby wipes.
One can lead to the other, y'know. but they'll cover this in orientation.
Brock keeps his baby in the freezer.
Look people, I'm just speculating. My kid's never had a warm-wipe change either. But as I said I know people who use them and are happy with them, and they definitely view the warmer as a benefit to themselves, not their babies.
overlooks the ever-significant enthalpy of evaporation
ach, the damnable enthalpy, I always have a blind spot for that - I seemed to remember it did for me in O-level physics too.
You can get things down to quite a low temperature with evaporation - specifically, you can get Ind Coope Long Life down to a drinkable temperature, for example. I think Brock was joking when he talked about freezing, but there is a simple experiment you can do - dip a flannel in room-temperature water, squeeze it out, carry it into the room of a sleeping loved one and drop it onto their belly. You'll find out that enthalpy and evaporative cooling can make a piece of cloth uncomfortably cold, even in a warm house, I promise. I'm a little bit suspicious of whether this device would work simply because evaporative cooling is so quick, but it's not a mad idea.
And unless your house is bloody freezing they really aren't *that* cold.
Yeah, stop fretting, people. Cold-wipes torture sounds plausible, but if babies don't get used to living in a sauna and having everything warmed for them from day one, they don't care. They'll happily toddle around naked in a sixty-degree house before the heat comes on on a winter morning.
Wipes warmers: one more indicator of late-stage capitalism.
It doesn't sound more ridiculous than the cashmere blankets ('but Cala, you don't have a child! cashmere is so much softer!') that the baby is going to spit up on.
Well, I don't have the authority that comes with impregnating someone else
Ouch! The changing table was right where I'm now sitting and typing, it occurs to me. The biggest factor in the whole thing must have been the bleariness I brought to it. I almost always would pick him/her up and walk and sing; I'm sure putting the just–changed right back in the crib wouldn't have worked no matter what the temperature of the wipes.
Ah, spit up. Every so often I look at my children when they're being difficult, and think "You know, they hardly ever vomit these days."
But more seriously, I got the sense from the article that given that an upper middle-class couple can probably get all of the their baby's needs met very easily, and even spring for the conveniences, as we're getting married later and are putting off kids till we have more cash, what's driving the crazy gifts is just that it still feels like an occasion for giving a present, but they don't need the basics.
Cold-wipes torture sounds plausible
Jesus wipes his children with lemon chicken.
Come on, kids! Time for your waterboarding bath!
As M. Rabelais noted back in the day, geese make better wipes, specifically their necks.
(The final paragraph in this section.)
Emerson-pwned, in this weekend's other toilet-paper thread.
Toddler-parent speaking:
Wipes-warmers heard of, laughed at.
100 year-old brick house + big windows in nursery + thermostat setback = really cold wipes. But, you know, not a big deal.
We've gotten through 3 birthdays without accepting gifts. She gets crap she doesn't need from her array of relatives, we don't need any more. I don't know how much longer this can last. I'm expecting one more year, hoping for indefinitely.
89 also applies to weddings, which - in the relevant socio-economic segment - are also occuring later to more-established people, who don't need all the household stuff, but still get ~$100 worth of stuff from each of ~100 wedding guests. You've already got nice knives? OK, how about this useless 20 quart hammered-copper kettle*?
* Actual example.
Use the giant copper kettle as a crib, fill it with water and float the baby around in it in a smaller pot. That'll get'im used to the cold.
What's the milestone that marks teh transition from spitting up to throwing up?
It's pretty obvious. Spitting up is accompanied by no distress, and it's usually right after feeding -- just a little mouthful (or more than that if you're my kids, but still not a bellyful) of cheesy gunk. A kid who's throwing up is sick and unhappy.
diaper wipe warmers are the ultimate sign of how overprotected and overcoddled the next generation is
Wipe warmers have competition.
I think it was Freud who said babies raised without warm-wiped butts turn into this guy.
What's the milestone that marks teh transition from spitting up to throwing up?
breastmilk -> solid foods
It's good to know we can all still find comity in dissing on parents and their spoiled brats.
Anyway, re. wipe warmers (and no, I did not buy one): though stored at room temp, wipes (or damp washcloths, which is what I used) tend, as damp things do, to be colder than room temp, which is itself cooler than body temp. And when you're changing a baby in the middle of the night, you kind of don't want him/her/it to wake up and start crying; you're hoping to do a quick change and get everyone back in bed asap.
I myself found that the sound of the hair dryer, and the sensation of warm air on his nether regions, soothed PK, so I kept a hair dryer next to the changing table.
Looks like it's Bitch and Brock against the world.
106: messing with the settings on a hair dryer while half asleep and then pointing it at your infant's genitals sounds, uh, exciting. Is there no risk of scorching?
If I have a kid I'm only going to wipe its ass on heated leather car seats. Sure, it's expensive, but its my baby, that car.
What kind of high tech hair dryer do you think I own? There are no "settings." There's on, and off.
After a quick blast of warm air, you hang the thing by its cord from the corner of the changing table and let the white noise do the soothing while you finish pinning the diaper.
A 2 setting hair dryer is high tech? Geez. I have an electric toothbrush, does that make me Batman?
This, you see, was my point. Try to keep up, Tweety.
What exactly goes on in a hair dryer when you set it on the "cool" setting? It seems like such a thing would be impossible, and yet it works.
you hang the thing by its cord from the corner of the changing table
This, paired with daily swabbing with alcohol, makes the cord stump fall off much more quickly.
112: It's what doesn't go on, CN. Specifically, the heating element.
Me and Brock and Dsquared. If you disagree with Dsquared, you've clearly lost contact with reality.
110: '3 setting', on balance, would have made my comment less idiotic sounding, but 'off', like the zero, is a heretical concept and should be banned.
"It's good to know we can all still find comity in dissing on parents and their spoiled brats."
Says the woman providing only the finest medical care for her kid's mice.
115: so Paris Hilton is a good actress?
117: You know it. My pride in my mouse veterinary skills is growing by leaps and bounds--I recently successfully treated suspiciously soft mouse poops in the one cage, and apparent respiratory distress in an elderly mouse in the next cage, sans vet visit. All patients recovered just fine and continue to be cute and happy.
Frontiers in seventeen dollar hair drying technology.
I suppose a curling iron wouldn't work as well.
I almost never dry my hair, and am not entirely sure why I even own a dryer, to be honest.
You know what's nice about hanging out with my college friends? They know how to give me shit and how to react to my ranty opinions by laughing and they appreciate my ridiculous shoes and we roll our eyes together at our fighting children and NO ONE GETS THEIR KNICKERS IN A TWIST.
Also my friend Kyle plans on voting for Hillary, and says you people are flat-out wrong about her. And she seldom says anyone is flat-out wrong about anything. So, nyah.
I don't even wear knickers, I just like to argue.
we roll our eyes together at our fighting children
It takes a village to neglect a child.
Considering my status as a committed non-breeder, I always found threads like this one surprisingly interesting, but now that I'm providing baby care for some very good friends and another pair of very good friends is talking about breeding, it's taken on an entirely new level of interest.
Goddess help me.